Service disruptions
On 22 July 2020, we undertook a contingency test with Link, requiring manual settlement of the clearing instruction. During the test there was a delay, but settlement was completed by 13.30. All other RTGS services were unaffected.
On 6 July 2020, the Bank experienced a 10 minute RTGS settlement delay. As a consequence of a SWIFT outage earlier in the day, there was an issue with our internal SWIFT infrastructure that led to a 10 minute outage of settlement while it was reset. All settlement obligations were settled during the standard settlement day, without needing an extension.
On 14 May 2020 the failure of a network component at one of SWIFT’s European processing centres meant the loss of its messaging services within that zone. As a consequence, the Bank lost connectivity to the external SWIFT messaging service that supports CHAPS. SWIFT restored services by performing a failover to their alternative processing centre, but CHAPS urgent and non-urgent settlement was not available for 28 minutes while this was completed. All settlement obligations were settled during the standard settlement day, without needing an extension.
On 4 December 2019 at 11:00 there was an internal issue which paused RTGS settlement for 10 minutes. Settlement was restarted following internal investigations. All settlement obligations were settled during the standard settlement day, without needing an extension. CREST settlement was unaffected.
On 20 March 2019 at 15:28 there was a controlled stop of CHAPS settlement in the Real Time Gross Settlement service that resulted in transactions being suspended until 16:43 when settlement was restarted following internal investigations. All settlement obligations were settled during the standard settlement day, without needing an extension.
On 19 February 2018, CHAPS settlement was unavailable for 18 minutes from 06:00 to 06:18 due to a minor operational issue that required manual intervention. Urgent settlement is usually available from 06:00 to 18:00, non-urgent is usually available from 06:00 to 17:30. CREST and other settlements were unaffected.
On 4 August 2017, ’non-urgent’ CHAPS settlement was unavailable for 12 minutes from 06:07 to 06:19, due to a minor issue with some of the Bank’s connections to the SWIFT network. Non-urgent CHAPS settlement resumed at 06:19. Settlement of urgent CHAPS payments was unaffected. All other RTGS services were unaffected.
On 5 June 2017, the RTGS Enquiry Link was unavailable for external users for 61 minutes, between 05:05 and 06:06 due to a minor internal issue. CHAPS payment processing and CREST settlement were unaffected.
On 13 March 2017, infrastructure for urgent CHAPS settlement and non-urgent CHAPS settlement was unavailable from 14:30, due to a SWIFT network issue. Urgent settlement was resumed after 40 minutes at 15:10. Non-urgent settlement was resumed after 60 minutes at 15:30. All other services were unaffected.
Summary of RTGS daily timetable